Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service Performance and its Enhancements in WCDMA Networks

Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) in Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) networks is used to transmit information from one source to vast amount of recipients. The MBMS technique eases the load of the network and therefore allows network to serve more subscribers. The very aim of this study is to evaluate the performance of Release 6 MBMS and its performance enhancements in WCDMA networks. Special attention will be focused on macro and receive diversity which are considered in addition to time diversity provided by long interleaving as enhancements on MBMS performance. 3GPP Release 6 specifications for MBMS introduce two macro diversity schemes: soft and selective combining. The effect of those combining scheme concepts together with and without receive diversity provided by multiple receive antennas are examined. Also, a concept closely related to the receive diversity called Rx-switching i.e., turning the another receive antenna off in good channel situations for power saving purposes is studied. The system level performance of MBMS point-to-multipoint (p-t-m) mode is evaluated with dynamic system level tool in which e.g., mobility of users and interactions of the radio resource management functionalities are explicitly taken into account. Our studies indicate that macro diversity brings significant gains to the MBMS performance. Receive diversity together with macro diversity schemes improves the performance even more and therefore enhances the cell throughput that MBMS can offer. Furthermore, based on the findings of this study it seems that 2Rx Rake receiver can operate with a single antenna significant amount of time without sacrificing desired coverage and thus provide clear power saving opportunities.